


I Want the Gods to No Longer Know My Name.

by glitter and gold (doubleinfinity)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-22
Updated: 2013-07-22
Packaged: 2017-12-20 21:07:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/891865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doubleinfinity/pseuds/glitter%20and%20gold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mr. Gold has always identified as a monster.</p><p>But when Belle is let out of her psych ward, suicidal and desperate, Gold tries to help her regain her happiness, though he can't directly tell her why she was imprisoned. But he tries to help her, because she means everything to him.</p><p>And he fails.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Want the Gods to No Longer Know My Name.

I don't want the universe to know the number of wounds I've made or the dents inflicted. I don't want them to know how many teeth hide behind my smile. Gods only know your name if they write it enough times on their lists of damnation.

But every God knows my name. Even in this world, they know who Rumpelstiltskin's title belongs to.

-

Hot February. The snow is falling with an emberous core.

Mr. Gold limps through town on his cane while wet crystals of heat fizzle against his skin. Maybe this is why there is no snow on the ground; his boots hit the pavement dry and hard.

-

_"This is it," she screams, "This time I jump."_

_Belle stands on the balcony of their just-finished home, pushing aside the plush, violet curtains that she had hung only a week prior._

_Her hands grip the edge of the railing, knuckles forced to turn white from the tension. There are other marks on her, too: up her legs run red streaks in the shape of fingernails- likewise, her nails are chipped and bruised from all the scratching._

_Her eyes are wild with rage, and Mr. Gold's are wide with fright._

_"But... but darling," he whispers, taking tentative steps towards his shivering girl. "This is what you want, isn't it? This is the home you wanted. This is the life you wanted. ...Right?"_

_As reasonably gentle as his tone is, it sparks anger, which immediately flares up into her eyes._

_"Right, right," she screams, dancing around the edge of the balcony, superciliously waving her arms up above her head. "This... life," she spits, "is not mine. It will never be mine. I'm meant to be locked up. There is a reason I was locked up. It's because the second I'm out, I go fucking insane and kill myself."_

_Mr. Gold whimpers and takes bolder steps out onto the structure. "No," he growls, heat rising into his words. "You were locked up because Regina forced you to be. You were locked away because she wanted to keep you from breaking my curse."_

_Belle laughs, her eyes rolling up into her head. "Curses do. Not. Exist," she screams. "Why isn't anybody just honest with me? Anybody?!"_

-

The snow is piling up on the housetops and restaurant roofs alike, making the sky unnaturally dark for only five o' clock- and yet, not a single person has turned a light on in any of the establishments. There is nobody walking the streets, either. The only sounds are Mr. Gold's own footsteps, coupled with sounds in nature that are too quiet to detect.

He hasn't heard such silence ever in his life. It is louder than the moments of peace that followed each of Belle's calamities.

-

_Her tantrum is over. Mr. Gold takes Belle into his arms._

_Her tears instantly begin to dampen his clothing, sending sticky pins of heat over his chest. As she sobs into his embrace, Mr. Gold strokes the brunette locks that spill down her back, whispering audible "thank God"'s and "it's okay"'s against her profile._

_She feels skinny and limp, her mind as weak as her body._

_"Belle," he coos, lifting her by her legs and leading her towards their room. "I know this is hard, and you don't remember who you are, or why you ended up in that place. But you must trust me. You are a strong girl, and you did not put yourself in there."_

_A slight sliver of light peeks through the bedroom door. Mr. Gold gently places Belle down onto their bed, his leg quivering as he lifts the excess weight off it._

_As he hauls himself onto the bed, returning to place with his arms wrapped around her shaking self, Belle looks through her wet eyelashes and mumbles, pitifully._

_"Please," she mewls, "Tell me why. I need to know why."_

_Mr. Gold sighs. And then begins to speak._

-

He squints his eyes, his vision now powdered with thick drops of snow.

After brushing them from his face, he notices, grimly, that he's found the building he's been in search of. It's fairly small, constructed quaintly, but the crimson sign that wraps around the roof demolishes the cozy atmosphere of the house.

Mr. Gold pushes open the door, greeted by a blast of smoldering heat.

-

_"You see, love," Mr. Gold whispers, running his hand up and down Belle's back, "It is because I sent you off, and left you all alone. And before I could realize my mistake, you had already been taken." He wavers in his speech. "I thought you were dead, Belle. More than just imprisoned, more than... amnesia. But you will remember all of this at some point. Then you will understand."_

_Belle's bottom lip quivers while she absorbs these words, her arms shuddering against Gold._

_She draws in a breath. "So you mean that I was taken advantage of after you kicked me out? Because you had kept me safe, but I was in danger without your protection?"_

_He nods, sadly. "Yes."_

_"So... so you abandoned me?"_

_Mr. Gold rises, holding his hands out in front of him. "No Belle," he hastily speaks, "Not on purpose, I didn't know... I had no idea what would happen. I just was..."_

_Belle jerks up to meet him, flaring with anger. "No! You left me alone because you were selfish. You abandoned me." She balls her fist and Mr. Gold only feels the burning impact for a brief moment- and then face-first, slumps down onto the bed._

-

__There is nothing but darkness and pain when Gold awakens alone on his bed. He stumbles onto the floor, using his arms as a tool for detection, managing to walk out into the hallway of his house._ _

_Silence crawls through the house, unbroken only by his breathed questions. "Belle...?"_

_He's hobbling down the spiral staircase when he finds her body, thrown down the steps, twisted and broken. Shock lasts a moment less than it should have, and tears come faster than his mind can trigger them. This is the least accidental thing he's ever seen._

-

Gold walks into the funeral parlor alone. Empty chairs line themselves up to face the podium, where the religious magistrates and Belle's closest companions are meant to speak.

He has no trouble finding a vacant seat, and places himself closest to the front, his eyes washed over in blank indifference.

"She was right, you know," he says to himself. He cocks his head to the side, speaking under his breath. " _You_ killed her. _You_ abandoned her." He grins emptily. "You're a monster."

He thrusts his body up, raises his cane into the air, and smashes it down into podium, splitting the wood, destroying the stage. " _You are the monster,_ " he screams, thrashing at anything in his path, " _You're the one who killed her._ "

-

_Gold flees into the night, Belle's body in his arms._

_"Help," he screams hoarsely, clutching her tight in spite of the fact that he can barely keep himself stable without his cane. "Somebody help me."_

_He beats on the first door he finds, face twisted in desperate helplessness. "Please," he stammers, fists returning to the wood over and over again._

_The door opens to reveal an annoyed Regina._

_"What?" she demands, her face confused and irate as she assess the situation. Her eyes flick from Gold's face to Belle's body, and her lips suddenly turn into a malicious smile._

_"Oh..." she smirks, lifting a hand to her chin. "I see... you've finally killed her, haven't you?"_

_Gold stares dumbfoundedly as she circles around them. "Yes. And a pity too. But who could have suspected anything different from a beast?"_

_Something inside Mr. Gold snaps so hard that he does something entirely impossible: he drops Belle. But his arms do not stay empty for long. He reaches out and grabs a lamp standing close to the doorway, smacking it against Regina again and again until she crumbles to the floor, pleading, but going silent soon after._

_She is the killer. She did this._

_He fumbles to lift Belle off the ground again, wrapping her against him, apologizing furiously. Her dark hair tumbles around her shoulders, her eyes shut gently against the lids, but her body is broken at the hinges and hangs loosely in his grasp._

_There is nothing left in Storybrooke._

_Mr. Gold returns to his house to lie Belle down in their bed, being careful about tucking her in just right. Then he goes to the kitchen drawer to pull out a small, black revolver tucked in the fake bottom._

_Then he enters all of the homes in Storybrooke, killing each inhabitant._

-

This is a mass-funeral.

Having let himself into the lowest level of the funeral home, Gold stares blankly at the incinerator he'd brought Belle to earlier, the fire still sending waves of heat over his fragile skin.

He waits for the last consolation: running his hands through her ashes, and then killing himself, too.

In the steely reflection of the incinerator's surface, Gold sees his face stare emotionless into the flames that dance through the machine. He closes his eyes to protect himself from the sight.

When he opens his eyes, he is still there.

There is a silence in his chest that eats him alive, damnation chewing on his flesh. He does not make an utterance. He just waits for the Gods to suck his soul into Hell.


End file.
